Arielle Shrugged

Alternative title for this post: Talking About Stuff I'm Clearly Not Smart Enough to Understand Nor Knowledgeable Enough About to Write a Blog Post On It But That Hasn't Stopped Me Before So If I Sound Like a Moron...Sorry. Just Pat Me on the Head and Carry On Your Merry Way.

If you read this blog post or are my friend on Goodreads, you know that I've been reading some Ayn Rand lately. I wanted to read some of her work not because I have a thirst for conservative literature, but because she's like, famous and stuff? And I feel like as a general rule it's good to read books by well-known authors.

It took me 13 days to power through the the 1200-page tome that is Atlas Shrugged, which I was pretty happy about because I was one day shy of the 14-day library loan deadline and you guys already know about how sometimes trying to read all my library books before they're due is a delicate balancing act where my overzealousness occasionally comes crashing down around my head.

I knew that Rand was something of a Republican icon, but I didn't actually know what specific values her books espouse and I had no idea what any of her books were even about, plot-wise. But after reading Atlas Shrugged, I have some questions about the alignment of her ideology with the ideologies of various and sundry American political parties (well no, really just the main two, but I just enjoy saying "various and sundry"). So, here goes.

For anyone who hasn't read it, here is a really REALLY general summary of what goes on in this book. It centers around the railroad industry. There are railroad company people and copper company people and steel company people. Some of these people are better at their jobs than others. Then there's lots of government regulation that tries to give equal opportunities to everyone in the industry even though some companies are clearly superior to others. It royally fucks everyone over and shit kind of implodes.

So here's the thing. I see why conservatives rally around this book, because conservatives typically hate regulation even though SIDEBAR while I'm liberal mostly for social reasons I still think some good ol' fashioned regulating could have prevented some of our own catastrophes (what up ENRON, LEHMAN BROTHERS, ETCETERAAAAA) but that is not what this post is about anyway.

Right. So Republicans hate regulation and there's lots of regulating in this book and that's why they love it. Check. Moving on.

One of the main points that I got out of this book is that Rand really wants people to earn their keep. Even more than she hates regulation, she hates freeloaders. You don't get something for nothing. If you do well, you get rewarded. If you mess everything up, you don't deserve shit.

This commentary might be coming a few years too late, but throughout this entire book I could think of nothing but, "I wonder what Rand would say about huge Wall Street bonuses. Especially when the economy is in the crapper. DOUBLE ESPECIALLY for the companies that paid out big bonuses even when they were receiving bailout funds." Talk about people messing shit up and not deserving something. I can't imagine she'd be down with that.

Rand also seems to care a lot about blue collar workers - sure, most of the "good guys" in Atlas Shrugged are management types, but it's evident that she respects manual labor and those who work hard at it. I think if this book were written about a white collar industry (like, hey, the financial services sector), her tone would be completely different. Or maybe the book just wouldn't even exist like that. Again, the thing that surprises me here is what seems to me like a disconnect between Rand's beliefs and Republican values which, in this day and age, really seem to be all about pushing the wealth upward (you know, that whole 1% biz-nass). And by "upward" clearly I mean, away from the working class.

The point is, to make another broad generalization (sorry), blue collar + Republicans don't seem to mix, yet Rand + blue collar kind of do. Though I am admittedly a bit confused about her stance on unions. Fortunately, a lot of the internet seems to be in the same camp.

On another kind of side note, there is some really interesting literature out there about why so many working-class people vote Republican despite the fact that it seems to go against their best interests. I didn't collect links while I was researching this but rest assured, if you google it, it's out there.

Okay. So a lot of Republicans are all, "Yay Atlas Shrugged is an awesome book and is a great guide to how capitalism is supposed to work (I've read some stuff about how Paul Ryan is a lover of Ayn Rand, though this post wasn't brought on by any current event aside from the fact that I just happened to read this book recently). My problem here is that this book is sort of realistic but also completely NOT realistic. Like, is there a word that means "extended hyperbole"? Because if so, that's it. Some of the ish that happens here is totally ridiculous and I have a hard time thinking people are taking it 100% seriously.

So after all of this, I'm sitting here kind of like..."What am I not getting?" I couldn't really find anything that talks about these points of disconnect between Rand and the Republican party and while I would love to think that I'm the first person to have this breakthrough thought of "Hey guys Ayn Rand is pretty conservative but maybe not AS conservative as you think she is," the more realistic thing is that there is something here that I'm totally misinterpreting or straight up not understanding because even though I'm sort of intelligent sometimes, other times I'm the kind of person who frantically looks for her cell phone while she's holding it. It seems to me that Rand, if she saw what the Republican party was doing today, might be appalled by a lot of it. But maybe I'm wrong.

End blog post of confusion. Shrug.